Hello, Hong Kong — The Nomadic Year

I’ve been in Hong Kong for only one hour and even if I’m half asleep, I already love it.

Getting around here seems pretty easy. There are lots of signs and all of them have indications in English. The weather feels like an endless summer and people seem… relaxed. Early in the morning, on a working day. Strange.

Accommodation

For 4 nights I got to live in a small room (that they considered as being large) at 16th floor in some building called (maybe improperly) Chungking Mansion. Considering the options, in retrospective, maybe it was large. I even had my own bathroom!

However, this is one of the strangest place I’ve live in: it’s a large building, which hosts a wide range of things: a luxurious hotel, few dozens of smaller hotels, hostels and guesthouses, residential apartments and, and top of it all, a quite big brisk market at the ground floor where you can find almost everything (from vegetables & fruits to weed & LSD).
And to get to the elevators, you must ~~cross the~~ fight your way through entire market.
I loved it.

The city

Even if Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated areas in the world, it doesn’t feel that crowded. I’m guessing that’s thanks to all the sky-scrappers and the numerous pedestrian underpasses & overpasses. The number of street-level crossings are at minimum and the cars traffic seem light almost at any hour.
Also, and probably most importantly, they have a pretty cool public transport system via train, which is automated (!!!) in large part.
“Based on Hong Kong Government’s Travel Characteristics Survey, over 90% of the daily journeys are on public transport, the highest rate in the world.“, Wikipedia — Holy wow.

— lots of pedestrian overpasses / footbridges; you can cross an entire district without ever meeting a car.

— the Chi Lin Nunnery.

— tallest building in Hong Kong measuring 484 m height (the International Commerce Centre building). Check out some photos I shoot from up there (Sky100 Observatory Deck).

— the Sky100 Observatory Deck in the ICC building. More photos in this album.

More photos around Hong Kong city can be found in this album.

Victoria Peak

To get up here, you can walk, a lot, or you could just take the Peak Tram, which is just a funicular driven by lady.

— she driving, they hatin’.

Once you get up there, you are greeted by Bruce Lee’s wax figure, for some reason.

The Peak is is more of a shopping mall than an actual mountain peak, but that’s fine, the view is pretty nice.

— view from Victoria Peak. Check out the entire album here.

Here I also had the best meal since I’ve started this trip: “Vegetable curry with rice” at Fujiyama Mama. I still have dreams about it.

More photos from Victoria Peak here.

Big Wave Bay

A while ago, I read about this surfing beach in Hong Kong, so being my last day I had to visit the Big Wave Bay. It’s located on the Hong Kong Island, whereas I was staying in the Kowloon Peninsula (mainland) — that is, a 2 hours trip away.

After walking a shit load more than estimated by Google, and admiring the wilderness of Shek O Country Park, I finally get there. And it’s awesome:

— the Big Wave Bay as seen from … bushes.
I dunno why I find myself photo shooting from random bushes, but that’s fine I guess, because I don’t have that many readers anyway 😀

Unfortunately, the weather got murky not long after I got there, so I haven’t got the chance to put my noob surfer costume on.

Anyway, it’s chill time.

— Big Wave Bay beer. Yup, they even brew their on beer. And it’s goooood.

Few beers later at the local beach pub, I find out I missed the last bus to the city, and that I’m going to walk back as well. So I pack my crap and throw myself thru the bushes back on the foot trail.

Obviously, not long after that, a light rain kicks in and it gets dark in a matter of minutes. Because why not.

I turn on the phone’s torch, turn on the music, and try to enjoy the stroll. And enjoy I did.

When all of the sudden, this mother fuckers pops out right above the foot trail, dangling from a tree:

— The Northern Golden Orb Weaver or Giant Golden Orb Weaver (Nephila pilipes) (that is, if I correctly identified the creature).

I should’ve put a hand in the picture, for scale, but that spider was a little larger than my opened hand.
So after I shat myself — because I’m a little arachnophobic, and sobered up instantly, I wrapped myself in me raincoat like a lady in distress, and tried to make a run for it.

One hour late, I made it out alive*. The Great (mini) Buddha was watching all along.
* I’m exaggerating, obviously, being a fragile damsel when it comes to my arachnophobia.